‘Deep Sage’, Gouge Away’s third studio album, started coming together in 2019 during sound checks and in small pockets of downtime between tours. In early 2020, they demoed songs with Brok Mende in an unassuming storage unit in Orlando, FL. Gouge Away pulled influence not only from the nostalgia of the bands they grew up listening to, but also developed a sense of urgency, noise, and introspective lyrics they felt most represented them. Those demos helped shape the songs into the finished record that ‘Deep Sage’ would become.
Everything came to a halt in 2020 when a full year of plans were canceled in an instant. With the rug pulled out from under them, their backs against the wall, and no way to change the situation they were in, the members of the band had no choice but to go on a hiatus. They moved to different parts of the country and focused on their personal lives, accepting that those songs were never going to see the light of day. However, the songs lived as files waiting to be rediscovered and every once in a while, they’d get the urge to listen to them again.
On New Year’s Eve just before 2022, Gouge Away decided to reconnect and finish writing the album in Portland, OR becoming their new writing location. While everyone was in town for a writing session, Militarie Gun had a show down the street at Mano Oculta and invited the band to play a couple of songs during their set as a surprise. It was the first show they had played in three years. Energized by the reaction, the band continued writing. They had an overabundance of material, slashing songs from the final tracklist left and right. They not only elaborated on the urgent and abrasive qualities they were known for but broadened their melodic traits, too.
Gouge Away entered Atomic Garden East in March 2023 with Jack Shirley at the helm, and recorded the record completely analog and almost entirely live. The band performed together in a live room while vocalist Christina Michelle was in an isolation booth, her vocals projected from a monitor so the band could hear her. The goal of recording live was to sound like five friends playing in a room together, just like where they started in Florida. Unpolished and far from being over-produced, this is what the heart of the group has always been.
Today, the album opener ’Stuck in the Dream’ arrives alongside a punchy performance video. Christina comments: “Recording live and to tape creates an intense environment where we have no choice but to feed off each other’s energy. We have to get it right in one take and if anyone messes up we all have to start over, so no one wants to be that guy. It adds an element of risk and excitement. We don’t want to sound beautifully polished or perfect anyway. We want to sound like the five of us being human, and no one is better than Jack Shirley when it comes to capturing what it feels like in the room.”
’Deep Sage’ tracklist:
01. Stuck in a Dream
02. Maybe Blue
03. Idealized
04. Deep Sage
05. A Welcome Change
06. Overwatering
07. No Release
08. The Sharpening
09. Spaced out
10. Newtau
11. Dallas